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Textbook Aesthetics The Key Thinkers 1St Edition Alessandro Giovannelli Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook Aesthetics The Key Thinkers 1St Edition Alessandro Giovannelli Ebook All Chapter PDF
Alessandro Giovannelli
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Aesthetics:
The Key Thinkers
Continuum Key Thinkers
www.continuumbooks.com
EISBN: 978-1-4411-8027-8
BH81.A39 2011
111’.8509–dc23
2011028614
Introduction 1
Alessandro Giovannelli
1. Plato 8
Robert Stecker
2. Aristotle 21
Angela Curran
3. Medieval Aesthetics 34
Gian Carlo Garfagnini
4. David Hume 48
Alan H. Goldman
5. Immanuel Kant 61
Elisabeth Schellekens
6. G. W. F. Hegel 75
Richard Eldridge
Index 231
Notes on Contributors
Aesthetics, the discipline aimed at the study of beauty and art, is flour-
ishing within anglophone, analytic philosophy.1 In the past 30 years or
so, there has been a boom in publications, an expansion in the scope
of the discipline’s interests, and a widening of the range of questions it
addresses. Some of the reasons for this rapid growth have to do with
the evolution of philosophy as an academic discipline within the English-
speaking world. Most notably, analytic philosophy has expanded into all
areas of investigation, well beyond its original focus on language and
the sciences, and beyond its more traditional subfields of logic, meta-
physics, epistemology, and ethics. In addition, aesthetics has benefited
from contemporary philosophy’s opening up to the idea that language
is only one of the loci of meaning, and that truth and knowledge need
not be found only in literal descriptions of the world. Hence, aesthet-
ics has become a privileged place for investigations of the conveyance
of meaning and truth by means of metaphor, fiction, or expression,
brought about by both linguistic and nonlinguistic means. Further, like
analytic philosophy in general, analytic aesthetics has become eclectic,
open to the ideas and methods of other disciplines and programs, espe-
cially scientific ones: psychology and anthropology, as well as cognitive
science and evolutionary biology for example.
Other reasons for the good health of contemporary analytic aes-
thetics are more specific. First of all, some of the developments of
contemporary art call for theoretical reflection. Whether it is through
environmental or urban art, experimental theater or conceptual archi-
tecture, contemporary art continues to prompt philosophical thinking
on such concepts as “art,” “art form,” and “medium.” There is also
increasing attention, within the academic circles and society at large,
2 Aesthetics: The Key Thinkers
même principe (The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle) offered the
first unified system of the fine arts.3 And, as mentioned, the notion of
the popular or mass arts has become quite crucial in the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries.
The eighteen essays that make this book cover twenty-one key think-
ers, to which a chapter or portion thereof is dedicated, and also comprise
two broad surveys, one on medieval aesthetics (Chapter 3) and one on
contemporary developments (Chapter 18). Seeking comprehensiveness
would have been unrealistic and hence the list of thinkers covered is
necessarily selective. Some sacrifices were imposed by the achievement
of two worthwhile goals. On the one hand, room was made for some
notable twentieth- century figures who are rarely on the radar of ana-
lytic philosophers, being within the province of what is called “continen-
tal philosophy”: Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W.
Adorno. On the other hand, the collection dedicates substantial space
to contemporary aesthetics, through six chapters devoted to post-1950
aesthetics: on Monroe Beardsley, Nelson Goodman, Richard Wollheim,
Arthur Danto, and Kendall Walton, complemented by the chapter on
contemporary developments. It should be noted that the final essay also
addresses, in limited detail, the views of key figures who do not have a
dedicated chapter, notably Frank Sibley (1923–1996) and George Dickie
(b. 1926). Yet, the essay mostly expands on the views of some leading
thinkers in today’s aesthetics. It is especially exciting, of course, that
several of the contributors to this collection figure among them.
The authors of the chapters were asked to combine clarity to rigor
and sophistication, hence allowing readers with different degrees of
acquaintance with the norms of philosophical scholarship to have
access to the main ideas of the thinkers covered. The essays they pro-
duced prove that this was not just desirable but also achievable. Hence,
the audience for this book can reasonably range from the beginner
who wants to learn about the field of aesthetics to the reader who
is better versed in the discipline and seeks insightful perspectives on
these key thinkers. Naturally, the book can also be used as a compan-
ion to the primary literature. Accordingly, the bibliographies appended
to each chapter list the primary sources and suggest opportunities for
further reading.
Each chapter is self-contained and can be read independently of
the others. Of course, the most natural way of approaching the essays
Introduction 5
***
I am thankful to Sarah Campbell and her staff at Continuum for their
ongoing assistance. Many thanks to Pam Bodenhorn for her assistance
in compiling the index. I am also thankful to Lafayette College for sup-
porting the project through a publishing grant and its Excel Program,
which allows students to assist with scholarly projects. Indeed, the
cooperation of Jonathan Cohn, Cara Cordeaux, and especially Eric
Henney has been invaluable. I am in debt to Jerrold Levinson for his
advice and careful comments. Most of all, I am thankful to the sixteen
philosophers and friends who have accepted to lend their expertise
and time to this project. I am honored to have had the opportunity of
gathering a group of scholars from five different countries.
Notes
3 The classical account of the emergence of the notion of “fine arts” and of a sys-
tem of the arts is Kristeller (1951/1952).
References
Alberti, Leon Battista. 1966. On Painting. John R. Spencer (ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb. 1954. Reflections on Poetry, Alexander Gottlieb
Baumgarten’s Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinenibus.
Karl Aschenbrennen and William Holter (trans.). Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 2001. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Paul Guyer and Eric
Matthews (trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. 1951/1952. “The Modern System of the Arts: A Study in the
History of Aesthetics,” parts I and II. Journal of the History of Ideas, 12, 496–527
(1951), and 13, 17–46 (1952).
Vitruvius. 2001. Ten Books on Architecture. Ingrid Rowland and Thomas Howe
(eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
CHAPTER 1
PLATO
(c. 427–347 BCE)
Robert Stecker
With respect to the arts, Plato is most famous for purportedly banning one
particular art form—poetry—from the Republic, his ideal state. Another
very common attribution is that he defines art as representation. Often
enough, overviews of the history of aesthetics leave matters there.
So we should start by clearing the decks. Plato never did these two
things for which he is most famous. First, there is no total ban on poetry.
He did give several important criticisms of poetry that people still grap-
ple with today, and did exclude poetry from many of the functions it
had in the Athens of his day, and that the representational arts still have
for us today. He advocated the censorship of much poetry but at the
same time gave poetry a crucial role in the early education of the lead-
ers of the state. Second, Plato never defines art as representation nor in
any other terms. Mimēsis, a Greek word that is sometimes appropriately
translated “representation,” but at other times should be translated as
“imitation” or “image-making,” plays a crucial organizing role in his
thinking about the several art forms, but the issue of defining what we
now call the fine arts was not one Plato took up. He never asks, “what
is art?” in the way he does ask, “what is justice?” or “what is piety?”
His interest with respect to the arts lay elsewhere.
Plato’s main interest in the arts concerns the closely related issues
of their effect on people, their value, and, in the light of these, the role
they should play in society. In Plato’s Athens, poetry was thought to be
a repository of both knowledge and wisdom. Plato questions not only
Plato 9
Plato wrote about individual art forms such as poetry, music, and paint-
ing, but there is some controversy as to whether he had a concept
under which he could think of these forms as art forms. Part of this
controversy derives from the now widely held view that the concept of
fine art, which groups together poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and
architecture, only arose in the eighteenth century and hence before that
there was just no concept that closely enough corresponds to our con-
cept of art or the fine arts. The Greek word that is the best candidate
for translation as “art” is technē , which covers all sorts of activities and
their products that can be practiced or produced skillfully by learning a
set of rules or procedures. Hence, such human activities as navigation
and saddle making are both instances of technē . On the other hand,
in the dialogue Ion, Plato has the character Socrates question whether
poetry is really produced by skill or knowledge, or instead by inspiration.
If the only concept available to Plato when thinking about the arts were
derived from the meaning of technē , he would be in a poor position to
think about art in the relevant sense.
But there is no reason to think Plato in particular or the ancient
Greeks in general had such limited conceptual resources. In Book III
of the Republic, Plato links together poetry and music with painting,
10 Aesthetics: The Key Thinkers
Plato discusses poetry and other arts in many dialogues, but the richest
source of his aesthetics is the Republic, which contains two extended
discussions of the arts. The first is found in Books II and III, and the
second and most famous of all of Plato’s writings on this topic is in the
final chapter, Book X.
The relevant stretches of Books II and III are concerned with the early
education of the guardians, the ruling class of the state. (The guardians
will eventually occupy two different tiers—the actual rulers of that state
and the soldiers who protect it—but at this stage they all receive the same
education.) The discussion begins with the role of poetic stories in this
education and eventually goes on to address music and the other arts and
crafts mentioned above. The import of this discussion goes well beyond the
role of art in the education of children, but it is a good place to begin.
Plato 11
put misguided attitudes in the mouths of characters who are not role
models—that is, men and women of “low character.” What can and
cannot be dramatically represented is even more strictly limited. Here
only the representation of people of high character is permitted, lest
one identify with vicious characters or, just as bad, become facile at
adopting the attitude of almost anyone. The more one does this, the
more one tends to become a person of bad character or of no particular
character at all. (A person of bad character acquires dispositions to feel
emotions, desires things, and act in ways that are harmful to himself
and others. A person of no character does not have firm dispositions
one way or the other but is ruled by external circumstances such as the
expectation of others or the role one happens to occupy.)
The same goes for music, which in ancient Greece accompanies
the recitation of poetry, and even for painting, weaving, embroidery,
architecture, and so on. Some of these items may not have an obvious
representational content as poetry (and painting) do, but for Plato they
all have an expressive character. In virtue of this, they fall under the
concept of mimēsis, at least as Plato sometimes uses the term. There
were a variety of modes of music in ancient Greece, and each mode
has a characteristic expressive content. Music expressive of lamentation
and grief is as undesirable as poetry and tragic drama that is expressive
of those emotions, especially since they would accompany each other.
Equally bad are compositions that have a great variety of expressive con-
tent, just as the dramatic representation of a great variety of characters
is bad. The appropriate kind of music possesses a rhythm and grace of
form expressive of the good moral character represented in appropriate
poetry. The artifacts that make up the visual environment created by
painting, architecture, sculpture, and other arts and crafts are capable
of having similar expressive qualities. At their best, they are expressive
of a grace and harmony that, as we discover in Book IV, is characteristic
of the soul of a just person.
We can learn a good deal about the nature of the arts as Plato con-
ceives them from this discussion of their role in early education. First,
although he characterizes the poetic stories he mentions as pseudeis
logoi, which might be translated either as “false discourses” or as
“fictional stories,” he believes that they are capable of expressing both
truths and falsehoods about important matters, just as we think that
fictional literature can tell us something important, or instead mislead
Plato 13
us, about the actual world. Second, these stories can express attitudes—
some harmful, some beneficial—toward significant aspects of life, and
children can easily be influenced to adopt those attitudes. (When we
turn to Book X, we will see that adults can be so influenced as well.)
Third, the very form of a work can be expressive of a character or a state
of mind—some admirable, some contemptible—and this can affect the
character and states of mind of those who encounter the works, for
good or ill. This permits art forms like music and architecture, and even
crafts like embroidery and weaving, to have an expressive character.
Even when such works lack what we would regard as representational
content, their expressiveness counts as a kind of mimēsis.
Most of us would agree that the three characteristics just outlined
are important, if not universal, features of artworks. They imply that
artworks can be both beneficial or harmful, which seems to be pre-
cisely the message of Books II and III. (What I leave out for now is our
likely disagreement with Plato about which works are beneficial, which
harmful.) Given this implication, it is surprising that Book X gives a much
harsher assessment of the value of poetry and painting. We should then
try to understand such a critique and why it is so harsh.
of justice; so to know what justice is, one must have knowledge of the
form. Once one has that, one may even reject some of the initial exam-
ples as things that appeared to be just but in fact were not. Now go
back to paintings. Whatever their metaphysical status, they represent
appearances and hence grasp “only a small part of each thing and a
part that is itself only an image” (598b). Paintings do not even give us
true beliefs about the material objects they represent; much less do they
give us knowledge of the form that makes the object an instance of its
kind. So it is not just that many paintings give us false beliefs, but that
they are constitutionally incapable of giving us knowledge.
What is true of painting is true of poetry. It too represents appear-
ances. To do that one needs neither knowledge nor true belief. We
may conclude—Socrates suggests—“that all poetic imitators, begin-
ning with Homer, imitate images of virtue and all the other things they
write about and have no grasp of the truth” (600e). Poetry too, on this
account, is constitutionally incapable of being a source of knowledge.
Both painting and poetry represent the way things appear, and this
renders both incapable of providing knowledge or even, by good luck,
representing things as they really are. However, poetry has a subject
matter that potentially makes it far more dangerous than painting. It
represents what human beings do, as well as their beliefs that “as a
result of these actions, they are doing either well or badly and . . .
experience either pleasure or pain” (603c). In short, drama in particular,
but other kinds of poetry as well, represent people acting and reacting
in the face of what life throws their way, their motives, the emotions
they feel, and their often emotion- driven assessment of their behavior
and its outcome. Painting, at least in Book X, represents the surface
of things, while poetry represents human beings with inner lives and
human actions as components of psychological chain reactions. Poetry
does so, however, without real knowledge of human excellence, and
furthermore with the aim of pleasing its audience. The behavior of
excellent human beings—the behavior recommended by reason, which
consists in moderation and restraint, “unvarying calm” in the face of
misfortune (or good fortune for that matter)—is highly recalcitrant to
16 Aesthetics: The Key Thinkers
6. Reconsidering art
There are several important discussions of mimēsis and art in Plato’s later
works. The most extensive is the discussions of art in the Laws, which
revisits issues of political philosophy covered in the Republic. In the Laws,
dance and poetry sung to musical accompaniment are again keystones
in education, and again it is important to choose the right kind of dance
and poetry and exclude the wrong kind. In society at large, poetry and
drama are performed. Comedy is explicitly permitted, where it was
banned in the Republic, because, it is said, without the comic one cannot
understand the serious. The role of performers in comedy is restricted to
slaves and other noncitizens, suggesting that there is something danger-
ous about actually adopting the role of ludicrous people, a danger that
does not equally carry over to the audience. Unlike comedy, tragedy is
still banned. What is also forbidden is any innovation in the arts. There
are certain forms that are expressive of good character or that, like com-
edy, are in some way useful, and artistic activity is to stick with those.
Poetry has a somewhat more extensive role in the society repre-
sented in the Laws than it does in the Republic, and that raises the
question whether later in life Plato changed his view about it and the
other arts. If there is change of view, it might concern the possibility that
mimēsis in some instances is a source of knowledge or at least of some
value in the acquisition of knowledge. This is suggested by the com-
ment on comedy mentioned above (without it one cannot understand
the serious) and an extensive discussion of mimēsis in the Sophist, in
which different kinds of the latter are distinguished. However, part of
the reason why poetry is given more leeway in the Laws is that, unlike
the Republic, it does not represent an ideal state. The presence of more
poetry in the society of Laws may in part be a recognition that, in actual
society, it will have a greater presence than is ideal.
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funciones, el patriota extendía la mano como para palpar el aire y
decía; «Ya principia a tomar calor la habitación... Va aumentando... Un
poquito más, y tendremos bastante. Yo no necesito más termómetro
que la yema del dedo meñique».
Más de una vez dijo, repitiendo una idea antigua.
—Desde el tiempo de mi Refugio no había visto yo un brasero tan
bueno. Por la mañana levantábase muy temprano y barría toda la
casa, canturreando entre dientes. No habían pasado tres meses desde
el primer día de su encierro, cuando parecía haber adquirido
conformidad casi perfecta con su pacífica existencia. Sus ratos de ma
humor eran muy escasos, y por lo general las turbonadas cerebrales
estallaban mientras Solita estaba fuera, disipándose desde que volvía
Para el espíritu del pobre anciano la huérfana era como un sol que lo
vivificaba. Verla y sentir efectos semejantes a los de la aparición de
una luz en sitio antes oscuro, era para él una misma cosa.
«Parece que no —decía para sí—, y le estoy tomando cariño a esa
muchachuela... Quién lo había de decir, siendo, como éramos
enemigos irreconciliables... ¡Ah, Patricio, Patricio!, si ahora te abrieran
la puerta de la casa y te echaran fuera, ¿abandonarías sin pena a esta
pobre huérfana que te mira como miraría la hija más cariñosa al padre
más desgraciado?».
Un día, allá por febrero o marzo del 24, Sarmiento observó que Sola
estaba más triste que de ordinario. Atribuyolo a no haber recibido las
cartas que una vez al mes causábanla tanto gozo. El siguiente día lo
pasó la huérfana llorando de la mañana a la noche, lo que afligió
extremadamente al patriota. Por más que agotó Sarmiento todo e
repertorio, no muy grande, por cierto, de sus trasnochados chistes, no
pudo sacarla de aquel estado, ni menos obligarla a revelar la causa de
su tristeza. Durante la cena, que casi fue de pura fórmula, Sarmiento
dijo:
—Pues si usted no se pone contenta, yo me volveré patriota como
antes, ea... Así estaremos los dos iguales... Me marcharé, sí, señora
estoy decidido a marcharme..., y lo siento, porque le he tomado a
usted mucho cariño, tanto cariño que...
Se echó a llorar, y tuvo que correr a ocultar sus lágrimas en la
alcoba inmediata.
Tres días después Sola salió muy de mañana, y volvió asaz
contenta, disipada la aflicción y con frescos colores en la cara, que
eran como la irradiación de su alegría, demasiado grande para
contenerse en los límites del alma. Tampoco entonces pudo e
preceptor saber la causa de tan rápido cambio; pero contentose con
ver los efectos, y se puso a bailar en medio de la sala, diciendo:
—¡Viva mi señora doña Solita, que ya está contenta, y yo también
No más lágrimas, no más suspiros. Señora, si usted me lo permite, me
voy a tomar la libertad de darle un abrazo.
Soledad aceptó con júbilo la idea, y el anciano la estrechó en sus
brazos con fuerza.
—¿Sabe usted —dijo limpiándose una lágrima— que hoy se quedó
la llave en casa, y que habría podido escaparme si hubiera querido?
—¿Y por qué no saliste, viejecillo bobo?
—Porque no me ha dado la gana, vamos a ver..., porque estoy aqu
muy re-que-te-bien.
—¡Cosa más rara! —observó Soledad jovialmente—. Ya no quieres
salir...
—No, señora, no. Vea usted lo que son los gustos. Ya no quiero
salir, y no saldré sino cuando usted me arroje. Así, de bóbilis bóbilis
me he ido acostumbrando a esta vida tonta, y... No es que yo renuncie
al cumplimiento de mi destino; pero ya vendrá la ocasión, ¿no es
verdad, niña mía? Hay más días que longanizas, y tiempo hay, tiempo
hay.
Don Patricio hacía con su mano derecha movimientos semejantes
al fluctuar de las olas, queriendo expresar de este modo el lento roda
del tiempo.
—Ahora, hija mía..., y no se me enfade usted si le doy este nombre
que me sale del corazón..., sí, señor, porque usted se ha portado
conmigo como una hija, y es justo que yo sea un buen padre para
usted... Pues decía, hija querida, que si usted no lo tiene a mal..., me
estorba en la boca el tratamiento de usted..., si no te llamo de tú
reviento... Pues decía, hija de mi alma, que ya es hora de que me des
de comer.
Un momento después comían los dos, departiendo alegremente
que no hay cosa que tan bien acompañe a un buen apetito como la
conversación amistosa y grata. Por la tarde, Soledad preparaba a su
viejo una bonita sorpresa.
—Como te vas portando bien —dijo—, y vas curándote de esas
ideas ridículas, voy a darte una golosina.
—¿Qué, hija de mi alma? —preguntó don Patricio con la curiosidad
de los niños, cuando se les anuncia algún regalo.
—Una golosina..., ya la verás.
—¿Pero qué es? Estoy rabiando. ¿Café? Si lo tomo todos los días..
¿Un periódico?
—Ahora no hay periódicos.
—¡No hay periódicos!... ¡Oh, vil absolutismo! ¿Conque no hay
prensa periódica?
Con un simple gesto apagó Soledad aquel chispazo de la hoguera
que parecía sofocada.
—¿Pues cuál es la golosina? Dímelo, angelito de mi corazón.
—La golosina es un paseo... Esta tarde te llevaré a dar un paseíto
Está hermosa la tarde.
—¡Bien, bravísimo, archibravísimo! —exclamó el vagabundo
arrojando su sombrero al aire—. Estrenaré esa magnífica capa que me
has arreglado. Vamos pronto... Mira, hija, que puede llover...
—Si no hay nubes...
—Puede ocurrir cualquier cosa.
—Nada puede ocurrir. Aguardaremos.
—¡Qué hermoso día! Haces bien en sacarme a pasear. Mira que
tengo ganitas de saber lo que es el aire libre.
Salieron a las calles, y de las calles al campo con vivo contento de
patriota, que experimentó grandísimo gozo por tal expansión, y luego
se volvieron a casa haciendo planes para nuevos paseos en los días
sucesivos. Así corría mansamente la vejez del buen maestro, que se
asombraba de encontrarse feliz sin saberlo, es decir, que miraba aque
maravilloso cambio de sus sentimientos y de sus gustos sin acertar a
darse cuenta de él, como observa el vulgo los grandes fenómenos de
la naturaleza sin explicárselos. Él pensaba a ratos en estas cosas
tratando de examinar de cerca la metamorfosis de su alma, y decía:
—Es que yo soy todo corazón... Esta joven me ha recogido, me ha
dado de comer y de vestir, me trata como a un padre. ¿Cómo no
adorarla? Patricio no es, no puede ser ingrato, y su corazón está
dispuesto a encenderse, a arder, a derretirse con los sentimientos más
vivos, así como con los más delicados... No es que en mí se hayan
enfriado los sublimes afectos de la patria, no, de ningún modo... (Ponía
mucho empeño en convencerse a sí mismo de esta verdad). Soy lo
mismo que era, el mismo gran patriota, y persisto en mi noble idea de
sacrificarme por la libertad, ofreciendo mi sangre preciosísima... Esto
no puede faltar, porque está escrito en el sacrosanto libro del destino..
Es que Dios no quiere que sea tan pronto como yo esperaba. Vendrá
el sacrificio, el cruento martirio, los lauros, la inmortalidad; pero
vendrán en oportuna sazón y cuando suene la hora. A cada sublime
momento de la historia le llega su hora, y entonces, consummatum
est... He aquí que Dios me depara un medio de corresponder a las
bondades de ese mi ángel tutelar. (Al decir esto se frotaba las manos
en señal de gozo). Es evidente que yo no tengo ningún bien mundano
que dejarle, pues carezco de fincas y de dinero, como no sea el que
ella misma me da. ¿Quiere decir esto que no pueda legarle algo?
No..., le dejaré un tesoro que vale más que todas las fincas y
caudales, un tesoro que es para beneficio del espíritu, no del cuerpo
le dejo, pues, mi gloria, y así, cuando la vean dirán: «Esa es la
compañera del gran Sarmiento, esa es su hija adoptiva, la que le
socorrió en sus últimos días. ¡Loor eterno a la muchacha!».
Como se ve, el patriota no estaba curado; poro su enfermedad
ofrecía menos peligro, por haber entrado en un período que podremos
llamar médicamente de revulsión. El cariño que Sarmiento había
tomado a su favorecedora era síntoma muy favorable, que sin duda
anunciaba, si no la extirpación del fanatismo, una nueva dirección de
él. No mentía el infeliz al decir que era todo corazón. Capaz era este
de los sentimientos más delicados, así como de los más ardientes
bastaba que las misteriosas corrientes de la vida consumasen su obra
llevando, como las del cielo, la tempestad a otra región y zona distinta
pero el pensamiento no podía obedecer a este cambio, porque había
en la máquina del cerebro sarmentil una clavija rota de difícil o quizás
imposible arreglo.
También Sola había tomado mucho cariño al desvalido anciano. Le
recogió por caridad; propúsose realizar sin ayuda de nadie uno de
esos admirables actos de la voluntad, tanto más meritorios cuanto más
oscuros, y sofocando resentimientos antiguos, indignos de la grandeza
de su alma, consumó valerosamente su obra bendita, digna de figura
en el Flos Sanctorum. Con el tiempo encendiose en su alma un vivo
afecto hacia el mendigo abandonado, y esto, unido a los dulces
placeres que trae consigo el amar, fue el más digno premio de su
noble acción. Llegó a acostumbrarse de tal modo a la compañía de
patriota vagabundo, que la habría echado muy de menos si en
cualquiera ocasión le faltara.
Un día Sarmiento le dijo:
—Querida Sola, hoy voy a pedirte un favor que creo no has de
negarme... Es un caprichillo de anciano mimoso, un antojillo de
abuelo... Si me lo niegas por cualquier pretexto, no me enfadaré, pero
me pondré muy triste.
—¿Qué es?
—Que me permitas darte un beso, hija mía. Hace muchos días que
estoy bregando con esta idea en la imaginación. Ya no puedo espera
más.
Soledad corrió hacia él, y don Patricio la tuvo largo rato sobre sus
rodillas prodigándole tiernas caricias.
—Por vida de la grandísima chilindraina, niña de mi corazón —
exclamó hecho un mar de lágrimas—, si ahora me separaran de ti, juro
que me moriría de pena. ¡Bendita seas tú mil veces!... Bendita seas
amparo mío, angelito mío, consuelo de mi vejez y heredera de m
gloria... ¡Toda, toda ella será para ti!
VIII